The Extraordinary Kame of Isbister Dig Featured on Digging for Britain

The archaeological dig at the Kame of Isbister in Shetland is among the most difficult sites to access in the UK. It will be featured in the BBC TV series "Digging for Britain" on Thursday, January 9, 2024, and will be available on BBC iPlayer starting January 7, 2024.

The dig itself was instigated by Dr. Andrew Jennings, Associate Professor in Island Studies at the UHI Institute for Northern Studies, and follows his paper published at the Viking Encounters Proceedings of the Eighteenth Viking Congress in 2020. The archaeological investigation was completed in collaboration with Dr Simon Clarke UHI Shetland and Professor Gordon Noble of Aberdeen University.

Dr. Jennings explains in his paper that the site is situated on a 38-meter-high rocky headland, which is connected to the Shetland mainland by a narrow ridge that is currently inaccessible. The site features a settlement composed of large stone and turf structures, which would have been quite impressive when approached from the sea and would have projected a sense of power to any ship sailing along the Shetland coast.

The site itself has been dated to the Viking period, around 770 AD to 990 AD and comparisons with a similar site at the Brough of Deerness in Orkney suggest that it may have served as a Viking fort or stronghold.

Dr Jennings goes on to say:

”The archaeological investigation at the Kame of Isbister will give us insight into the social changes wrought by Norse raiding. Despite decades of study, how this transition took place is uncertain. In Orkney, we have a good selection of sites that give us an indication of this transition, but in Shetland, we have very little evidence of such transition from the Pictish to the Norse period.”

Further background to this amazing site can be obtained from Dr Andrew Jennings research paper – A Potential Viking Fort in Shetland.

Thanks to Dr. Gordon Noble, Charlotta Hillerdal and Elisabeth Niklasson Aberdeen University and Dr Simon Clarke UHI Shetland.